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Book part
Publication date: 24 March 2021

Jason Spicer and Christa R. Lee-Chuvala

Alternative enterprises – organizations that operate as a business while still also being driven by a social purpose – are sometimes owned by workers or other stakeholders, rather…

Abstract

Alternative enterprises – organizations that operate as a business while still also being driven by a social purpose – are sometimes owned by workers or other stakeholders, rather than shareholders. What role does ownership play in enabling alternative enterprises to prioritize substantively rational organizational values, like environmental sustainability and social equity, over instrumentally rational ones, like profit maximization? We situate this question at the intersection of research on: (1) stakeholder governance and mission drift in both hybrid and collectivist-democratic organizations; and (2) varieties of ownership of enterprise. Though these literatures suggest that ownership affects the ability of alternative enterprises to maintain their social missions, the precise nature of this relationship remains under-theorized. Using the case of a global, social, and environmental values-based banking network, we suggest that alternative ownership is likely a necessary, but not sufficient, condition to combat mission drift in enterprises that have a legal owner. A supermajority of this network’s banks deploy alternative ownership structures; those operating with these structures are disproportionately associated with social movements, which imprint their values onto the banks. We show how alternative ownership acts through specific mechanisms to sustain enterprises’ missions, and we also trace how many of these mechanisms are endogenous to alternative ownership models. Finally, we find that ownership models vary in how well they enable the expression and maintenance of these social values. A ladder of mission-sustaining ownership models exists, whereby the dominance of substantive, non-instrumental values over operations and investment becomes increasingly robust as one moves up the rungs from mission-driven investor ownership to special shareholder and member-ownership models.

Details

Organizational Imaginaries: Tempering Capitalism and Tending to Communities through Cooperatives and Collectivist Democracy
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83867-989-7

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 24 March 2021

Katherine K. Chen and Victor Tan Chen

This volume explores an expansive array of organizational imaginaries, or understandings of organizational possibilities, with a focus on how collectivist-democratic organizations…

Abstract

This volume explores an expansive array of organizational imaginaries, or understandings of organizational possibilities, with a focus on how collectivist-democratic organizations offer alternatives to conventional for-profit managerial enterprises. These include worker and consumer cooperatives and other enterprises that, to varying degrees, (1) emphasize social values over profit; (2) are owned not by shareholders but by workers, consumers, or other stakeholders; (3) employ democratic forms of managing their operations; and (4) have social ties to the organization based on moral and emotional commitments. The contributors to this volume examine how these enterprises generate solidarity among members, network with other organizations and communities, contend with market pressures, and enhance their larger organizational ecosystems. In this introductory paper, the authors put forward an inclusive organizational typology whose continuums account for four key sources of variation – values, ownership, management, and social relations – and argue that enterprises fall between these two poles of the collectivist-democratic organization and the for-profit managerial enterprise. Drawing from this volume’s empirical studies, the authors situate these market actors within fields of competition and contestation shaped not just by state action and legal frameworks, but also by the presence or absence of social movements, labor unions, and meta-organizations. This typology challenges conventional conceptualizations of for-profit managerial enterprises as ideals or norms, reconnects past models of organizing among marginalized communities with contemporary and future possibilities, and offers activists and entrepreneurs a sense of the wide range of possibilities for building enterprises that differ from dominant models.

Details

Organizational Imaginaries: Tempering Capitalism and Tending to Communities through Cooperatives and Collectivist Democracy
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83867-989-7

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 24 March 2021

Carla Young

Scholarship on alternative organizations and cooperatives has argued that networks and intermediaries foster organizational form stability and protect collectivist-democratic…

Abstract

Scholarship on alternative organizations and cooperatives has argued that networks and intermediaries foster organizational form stability and protect collectivist-democratic organizations from rationalization as well as decoupling. This study of field-level organizing among food co-ops in the United States shows that rather than buffering collectivist organizations from conventional market and rationalization pressures, meta-organizations can also serve as a conduit for rationalizing pressures, subjecting vulnerable organizations to what I call quasi-coercive isomorphism. Using interviews of field participants, ethnographic observations of conferences, and content analysis of organizational documents, I examine the formation and impact of National Co+op Grocers, a meta-cooperative created to leverage scale and pool resources among food co-ops. I find that this meta-organization enforced grocery industry-oriented norms of operation, management, and presentation among its member organizations in return for providing mutual liability and economies of scale. This focus on select operationally scalable processes and structures for support generated isomorphic pressures that exposed, rather than sheltered, co-ops, especially smaller, resource-poor ones, from industry standards. The meta-organization thus promoted a sectorized model of more marketized practices for the field’s cooperatives that pushed co-ops to adopt conventional grocery store practices and distanced them from the practices of other cooperative form fields. Moreover, the potential of cooperative form-specific elements for scaling was not realized: collective ownership and democratic governance remained local concerns. These findings suggest that whether meso-level cooperation among cooperatives can support alternative form maintenance is contingent on the structure and scope of the meta-organization and on the perceived scalability of operational and governance elements of the cooperative organizational form.

Details

Organizational Imaginaries: Tempering Capitalism and Tending to Communities through Cooperatives and Collectivist Democracy
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83867-989-7

Keywords

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 24 March 2021

Abstract

Details

Organizational Imaginaries: Tempering Capitalism and Tending to Communities through Cooperatives and Collectivist Democracy
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83867-989-7

Article
Publication date: 9 January 2019

Jean Hatton and Surya Monro

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the relevance of intersectional theory (Crenshaw, 1989; Winker and Degele, 2011) in understanding how youth workers name themselves in…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the relevance of intersectional theory (Crenshaw, 1989; Winker and Degele, 2011) in understanding how youth workers name themselves in their everyday lives. An intersectional approach will assist youth workers in developing a clear understanding of their own self as they work with young people from diverse and challenging backgrounds.

Design/methodology/approach

This research takes a qualitative approach, using in-depth interviews with cisgendered, female lesbian, gay and bisexual respondents of different social class, religion, ethnicity and age about their everyday experiences.

Findings

Intracategorical and anticategorical intersectional approaches (McCall, 2005) were used to assist in understanding how these professionals chose to name themselves in their personal and working lives.

Originality/value

The youth work literature, although focussed on the importance of issues of diversity, has not engaged with the ideas of intersectionality. The focus on intersections of sexuality, as well as social class, religion, ethnicity and age, fills another gap in the literature where less attention has been paid to the “category” of sexuality (Richardson and Monro, 2012; Wright, 2016b). These findings will be useful for youth workers and for practitioners and their trainers from a range of professional backgrounds such as therapists, social workers, teachers and health care practitioners.

Details

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, vol. 38 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-7149

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Book part
Publication date: 11 April 2019

April L. Wright and Carla Wright

This essay addresses the topic of research lifeworlds and personal lifeworlds and what we gain and lose as researchers, and as people, from their overlaps and collisions. The…

Abstract

This essay addresses the topic of research lifeworlds and personal lifeworlds and what we gain and lose as researchers, and as people, from their overlaps and collisions. The essay analyses six narrative accounts of the authors lived experience of a unique collision between research and personal lifeworlds when the researcher-mother presented with her sick daughter to the hospital emergency department that served as the field site for her own research. This analysis revealed the following themes through which a researcher’s personhood animates the research process: feeling exposed but empowered; gaining conceptual clarity while opening up ethical ambiguity; and becoming liminal because of identity shifts and coping through self-reflexivity. The essay contributes to our collective understanding and shared learning of the ways a researcher’s personhood shapes, and is shaped by, the research process and (re)production of knowledge.

Details

The Production of Managerial Knowledge and Organizational Theory: New Approaches to Writing, Producing and Consuming Theory
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78769-183-4

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 October 2016

Carla Rodriguez-Sanchez and Franco Manuel Sancho-Esper

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it examines the communication strategies pursued by firms related to alcohol beverages in Spain during a decade with major changes in…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it examines the communication strategies pursued by firms related to alcohol beverages in Spain during a decade with major changes in alcohol marketing regulations. Second, it analyzes the relationship between these strategies and underage alcohol consumption before and after 2007.

Design/methodology/approach

Panel data methodology is implemented using data from ESTUDES national survey (average sample size 26,000 interviews, 2004-2010) and INFOADEX (nationwide advertising expenditure, 1999-2013).

Findings

The results show that, under a restrictive alcohol marketing framework, firms related to alcohol beverages adapt their communication strategies: budget deviation from advertising to sponsorship. Regarding alcohol quantity and frequency models, the relationship between alcohol advertising expenditure and underage alcohol consumption after 2007 is very small but still positive and significant. However, contrary to expectations, in the case of alcohol sponsorship, the relationship between expenditure and underage alcohol consumption has not been affected by the observed budget deviation from advertising to sponsorship after 2007.

Research limitations/implications

Changes in alcohol advertising and sponsorship regulation lead firms related to alcohol beverages to change their communication strategies to overcome new regulatory restrictions and to reach their target group. Overall, despite the relationships between both advertising and sponsorship expenditure and underage alcohol consumption diminish between periods, they still remain positive and significant. Closer and updated monitoring of alcohol communication strategies pursued by firm is needed to keep controlling the alcohol advertising and sponsorship exposure to under age people.

Originality/value

This is a pioneer study in analyzing communication strategies within the Spanish alcohol beverages sector and in proposing a model to analyze the dynamic effect of such strategies on underage alcohol consumption.

Details

Journal of Social Marketing, vol. 6 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2042-6763

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 3 July 2002

Walter R. Allen, Margaret Beale Spencer and Carla O'Connor

Taken in its entirety, this edited volume presents broad, sweeping perspectives on race culture, society, socialization and education. The topics are expansive and the analyses…

Abstract

Taken in its entirety, this edited volume presents broad, sweeping perspectives on race culture, society, socialization and education. The topics are expansive and the analyses incisive. Various contributors to the volume earned doctoral degrees in education, human development, psychology, social work and sociology across four decades (1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s). Despite the variety of disciplines, theoretical perspectives, methodological approaches and conclusions, there is an underlying coherence. This coherence derives in part from the authors' shared commitment to an holistic approach, which examines questions around educational achievement in relation to ecological, cultural, historical, political, economic, social and psychological contexts. In a word, these chapters embody an holistic approach to educational research, theory, practice and policy that is very much consistent with the Chicago School Tradition.To be sure, the studies in this volume raise far more questions than provide definitive answers concerning the perplexing problems of race, culture, inequality and education in America. The central importance of these studies and this volume may reside in their very ability to challenge established orthodoxies. By doing so, the studies published here provide a vital heuristic function. Certainly, there continues to be a pressing need for concerted efforts on research, theory, teaching/learning and policy fronts in order to achieve educational equity for African Americans and for other disenfranchised groups. To the extent that this volume fuels the dialogue and continues the quest, then our purpose of honoring Professor Edgar G. Epps, consummate scholar and important contributor to the Chicago School Tradition, has been well served.

Details

African American Education: Race, Community, Inequality, and Achievement a Tribute to Edgar G. Epps
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-76230-829-3

Article
Publication date: 14 September 2018

Carla Susana Marques, Gina Santos, Vanessa Ratten and Ana B. Barros

Rural entrepreneurship is an emergent field of study, with these start-ups becoming one of the most noticeable ways to promote rural development, but the few studies concerning…

1209

Abstract

Purpose

Rural entrepreneurship is an emergent field of study, with these start-ups becoming one of the most noticeable ways to promote rural development, but the few studies concerning innovation among artisans have thus far only been exploratory. The purpose of this paper is to examine the entrepreneurial artisan initiatives of young innovators in a peripheral northern area of Portugal where black pottery is produced.

Design/methodology/approach

Qualitative data analysis was carried out on in-depth semi-structured interviews with three young artisan innovators and entrepreneurs and one individual who functions as a cultural booster. The content analysis was done using QSR International’s NVivo Version 11 software.

Findings

These young entrepreneurs have developed commercial activities and introduced innovations (i.e. design and process) into black pottery production, while taking advantage of endogenous materials, local culture and traditional knowledge. These individuals have sought not only to generate their own innovations but also to keep their culture and local traditions alive, thereby contributing to rural development by establishing networks with local young artisans.

Research limitations/implications

Some limitations are linked to the sample’s size and basis in a specific geographic reality.

Practical implications

The findings provide a fuller understanding of why some rural artisan firms grow, suggesting that artisans’ networks and innovative and entrepreneurial behaviours play a key role.

Originality/value

This research’s results contribute to the literature on the role that innovation can play as a booster of rural artisanship through networks and entrepreneurship. This paper is among the first to discuss black pottery as a form of artisan entrepreneurship. The results underline the value of innovations and networks, which were found to be the core ingredients in rural artisan entrepreneurship.

Details

International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, vol. 25 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1355-2554

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 12 September 2016

Carla C.J.M. Millar, Martin Lockett and John F. Mahon

This paper aims to further research on leadership and knowledge management through formal knowledge strategies in knowledge-intensive organizations (KIOs), and analyse knowledge…

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to further research on leadership and knowledge management through formal knowledge strategies in knowledge-intensive organizations (KIOs), and analyse knowledge management challenges and approaches within KIOs, especially tacit knowledge.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper is based on conceptual and literature research.

Findings

Managing knowledge as an organizational asset involves how knowledge is obtained, stored and organized, and accessed and shared when needed. This is crucial for KIOs. Knowledge that is not captured, understood and transferred, throughout the organization, is useless. This requires the integration of systems and processes with people and leadership. Tacit knowledge generation and transfer is especially important in KIOs. In particular, the success of KIOs depends crucially on management’s ability to give leadership in a way that supports knowledge-intensive teamwork. The global nature of internal and external knowledge networks adds to the leadership challenge. This can be made more complex by cultural differences, intellectual property protection (formal and informal) and talent scarcity.

Research limitations/implications

Further research is needed to identify the types of KIO and to better understand sound common knowledge management and related leadership principles across all types of KIO and those that are more context-dependent on the type of KIO and/or its business and cultural context. More research is needed on policy making organizations, in-company policy-making research and development and creative industries.

Originality/value

The paper takes forward research on leading knowledge management in KIOs and introduces 14 challenging new papers in this specific field of research.

Details

Journal of Knowledge Management, vol. 20 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1367-3270

Keywords

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